Top 50 Singles of 2004

Collaborating with the Scissor Sisters on this Olivia Newton John-esque power ballad, Australian chanteuse Kylie Minogue again successfully mines for glittery gold, piling up ghostly whispers and a huge yodel-of-a-chorus atop bubbling white-suit beats and descending flairs. The lyric is a basic grab bag of romantic lines; but with the addition of magic (check for the sounds of pixie dust!) and notions of death and psychic traces ("I don't believe when you die your presence isn't felt"), icy disco is reborn as something tinselly and grandiose. --Brandon Stosuy

19: Usher [ft. Lil Jon & Ludacris] "Yeah!" [Arista]

It's hard to believe hat the year's most enduring, encapsulating pop song wasn't even originally earmarked as a single, but such is the beauty of pop music-- it is, by definition, the stuff that most demands to be heard. At the beginning of "Yeah"'s slow leak into the R&B world, crunk was still a hip-hop sidebar, but with Usher to guide it into the mainstream (while patron saint Lil Jon stood by and cheered), it sopped up the audience that its hugeness demanded. With Usher's subtle vocal hook there to offset Lil Jon's four-alarm fire, rave-synth squall, "Yeah" hit nearly everyone in the belly, in the process setting the table for crunk-inspired crossovers like Ciara, Nivea, and the small army that are certain to follow next year. --Mark Pytlik

18: Kanye West "Jesus Walks" [Rocafella]

Kanye West emerged in 2004 with his post-jaw-wired The College Dropout, a per-zine platter that punk-slapped Hot 97 templates, garnering 10 Grammy nominations and countless critical tongue baths in the process. There are gems aplenty but "Jesus Walks" is the album's most compelling blast: Spinning clipped vocal patterns that mix humor and impassioned declamation, West enacts a spiritual quest before a jammed-up backdrop of Wizard of Oz 'oh-ee-oh,' chain-gang drone, jump-rope chants, and catchy flippity flap percussion. Really, there's more going on in this one track (musically and textually) than in Ja Rule's entire oeuvre. --Brandon Stosuy

17: Modest Mouse "Float On" [Sony]

"Have you heard that new band Modest Mouse?" Statements like that twisted even the most non-elitist fan's visage as the universe burped and "Float On" somehow slipped to the top of Billboard's modern rock charts. But when they've written such a cheerful radio-perfect bounce without losing the quirks of the sound they've worked toward perfecting for years, why do anything but give credit where it's due? After all that the band went through to put out the Good News LP, it seems Isaac Brock is seeing some returns on his Karma Payment Plan, and optimism suits him well. --Jason Crock

16: Gwen Stefani "What You Waiting For?" [Interscope]

Talk of this track invariably returns to that well-worn refrain, "Take a chance, you stupid ho." I can't speak authoritatively on Gwen's IQ or sexual fidelity, but a quick scan of her career trajectory shows she's definitely been pushing her own envelope. Her roots in happy-fun-time ska have borne Day-Glo fiber-optic time-traveling fruit, blooming in a world where "Video Killed the Radio Star" is the intergalactic anthem, Madonna's pre-Kaballah DNA is readily available in jelly beans and scratch-n-sniff stickers, and blade runners get high licking the sweat from the fur of Pokémon pets. If that's all there is, my friends, then let's keep freaking. --David Raposa

15: Soulwax "NY Excuse" [PIAS]

At a crowded Halloween party, I shared floor space with a kid in an astronaut suit and a cheap plastic bag for a helmet. "NY Excuse" came on and he started dancing harder than anyone in the room. After he suffocated himself, he took off his plastic bag, gasped for air for about two minutes, and danced really hard for five seconds before he had to stop again. Funny what a feisty Belgian electro-disco number can do to people when they're short on oxygen. --Nick Sylvester

14: Animal Collective "Who Could Win a Rabbit" [Fat Cat]

Although Animal Collective have never been a singles band by any stretch of the imagination, "Who Could Win a Rabbit" is the group's most accessible moment, and fits well alongside the year's catchiest pop singles. The song's furiously strummed acoustic guitar hook, hectic free-associative verses, and borderline incoherent (but utterly memorable) chorus strike like an amphetamine-driven summer camp sing-along. Animal Collective have a goofy charm and authenticity that appeals to something innately cruder and sillier than most pop music, and "Who Could Win a Rabbit" is all the more rewarding for it. --David Moore

13: The Go! Team "The Power Is On" [Memphis Industries]

There are many songs best heard while driving, but "The Power Is On" is more specifically best heard while driving a van. And I don't mean some SUV-hybrid shaped like a sneaker, I mean a real Bad News Bears in Breaking Training van-- one with swiveling captain chairs, carpeted walls, and room in the back to load up B.A. Baracus and enough ammo to go rescue some fuckin' hostages. And though, as you come down the block, the bad guys might recognize your theme song's propulsive piano, horns, and urgent Double-Dutch chanting, all they'll have time to do is run. --Matthew Murphy

12: Twista [ft. Kanye West & Jaime Foxx] "Slow Jamz" [Atlantic]

"Slow Jamz" ended up being the reverse Midas track of 2004: Everyone who touched it turned to gold. By the end of this year's award cycle, it could possibly feature both a Grammy winner and an Oscar winner, and the song put Twista's Micro Machines guy style back on the map, deepening Chicago's stable as it finally arrived as a viable hip-hop locus. Hell, even Vandross had a great year, if you ignore that whole infirmity thing. Recovered from its early-year overplay, "Slow Jamz" still stands as choice musical meta-fiction, and the funniest hip-hop moment not to spring from "Chappelle's Show". --Rob Mitchum

11: Annie "Chewing Gum" [679]

Great pop songs almost always make you want to shout into your bedroom mirror, hair flying, junk going everywhere, hollering stupid romantic advice to your own red-faced reflection: Nordic chart heroine Annie has finally taken pop self-obsession to new meta-levels, addressing an entire single to herself. "Chewing Gum", a playful collaboration with Richard X, is sharply, painfully addictive-- all jangly beats, zip-zaps, handclaps, and Annie's sheer, range-less pipes mewing wholly absurd lyrics ("Oh no, oh no/ You've got it all wrong/ You think you're chocolate but you're chewing gum"). It may seem hollow on paper but like Kylie before her, Annie infuses every second of "Chewing Gum" with girly, gorgeous dizziness, singing so plainly that you can't help but empathize, nodding along with her odd self-awareness, even joining in for a flat verse of "la la"s. Annie's advice may be self-directed, but there's plenty of room for everyone in this song. --Amanda Petrusich